Rilling's silence speaks volumes

Published 5:15 am, Monday, December 1, 2014

To the Editor:

The reluctance of Mayor Rilling to offer any thoughts or guidance on major issues affecting Norwalk has become more noticeable of late.

More noticeable because of the contrast with other prominent Democrats in the city who, unlike Rilling, have not shied away from taking clear-cut positions in the wake of Manny Rivera's sudden and disturbing resignation as schools superintendent. In The Hour on Nov. 25, the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee, Ed Camacho, pinned a good part of the blame on three Democratic members of the Board of Education. It is a mistake, he said, "to focus entirely on these board members because I don't think that's the full story, but I believe the difficulties these board members presented made his mission to transform the school system more challenging."

In the same edition of The Hour, former Common Councilman Warren Pena was even more forthright. "Now there is the issue of race baiting," he said, referring to a BOE controversy stirred up a few months ago. "If we do not change our messengers or the narrative, we are in big trouble. We cannot use the term racist just because we do not get our way or what we want." He added, "This is wrong and should not be tolerated in our city!"

Compare that to what we've heard from Norwalk's top elected official, Harry Rilling. It's the same we heard from him on nearly every other problem the city has had to deal with since he became mayor. Crickets.

Perhaps, by not saying what he thinks about anything, he believes he'll avoid trouble for himself. But what about the rest of us?